Some Praise For U-He Presswerk!

[4tune]

I jumped on the u-he sale mainly after re-demoing Presswerk then of course all the rest offered in the bundle

The reason I`m singling out Presswerk here though is that it seems to be fantastically useful at the composing stage. Particularly with getting electronic kicks tucked in, just put it into easy mode adjust to taste and move on. Just seems to work amazingly well with this!

Even if it ends up being swapped out later for something else, it's great at getting things started and as a reference point for ABing later.

Happy to hear more tips from more long-term (or short-term) users!

[Fleer]

Sounds interesting. I’m actually selling it but now thinking I’d better keep it, as well as Satin.

[deastman]

Presswerk is my go-to “character” compressor for when I want a lot of coloration and saturation. I’m sure it can do subtle and transparent too, but I’m not really a subtle kinda guy. Same with Satin- whenever I pull that up, I immediately turn every quality parameter as low as possible, pushing it into overdriven cassette tape territory. Love them!

[ATS]

I am not sure why someone would compress kicks?

But yeah I love Presswerk too.

[4tune]

Sounds interesting. I’m actually selling it but now thinking I’d better keep it, as well as Satin.

I`d say it`s definitley worth giving a go before you part with it! It's like: Kick + Presswerk = Kick out of the way but still sitting there solidly, allowing you to concentrate on how the rest of the stuff is going to fit together.

One thing worth being aware of is it can be fairly brutal on transients particularly on fast attack ,so if starting in Easy Mode I often click the `house/home` icon on the top left and go and mix some dry signal back in. Plenty to tweak there later in the song as things start progressing too.

Presswerk is my go-to “character” compressor for when I want a lot of coloration and saturation. I’m sure it can do subtle and transparent too, but I’m not really a subtle kinda guy. Same with Satin- whenever I pull that up, I immediately turn every quality parameter as low as possible, pushing it into overdriven cassette tape territory. Love them!

Definitely got a lot of character! Smooth compression action too. With Satin, I`ve only experimented briefly on the master bus but it seems to easily do a nice gluing thing too! I`ll give the lower quality tip a run and see how many individual tracks my intel will allow!

I am not sure why someone would compress kicks?

But yeah I love Presswerk too.

If it works it works!

YMMV but: Sound design, change the envelope of the kick, 'glue' layered kick samples together, or in this case I mentioned it seems put the kick in a place that makes me focus better on the rest of the song.

[yellowmix]

It's my primary character compressor too. I love that it doesn't model anything specific, but gets the circuit flavors right; optical, vari-mu, vca, fet, etc.. Works on the bus, on channel, great at sidechaining. It's not so much a single compressor but a toolbox of compressors concepts (like DPR) you can mix and match. It's deep. And if that's too much to handle at first, there are multiple preset views you can use right away.

Presswerk is great on kicks, btw, fattens them up real good. Parallel compression in an insert with tasty dynamic saturation, what more could you want?

With that said, Presswerk could use another tutorial video. The current one concentrates on the views.

[kmonkey]

I am not sure why someone would compress kicks?

6090 posts and you don't happen to know that people (especially in electronic music) are compressing their kicks to: change shape/sound of it, duck or expose transinents or shape them add some compressor color on it or putanything here which compressor can give you - touche.

OP - try Presswerk limiter programs on kicks. Sometimes amazing

[Ploki]

I am not sure why someone would compress kicks?

But yeah I love Presswerk too.

Changes the colour a little, it's a sound design tool like any other.

I love presswerk. it's my go to for vocals - parallel compression, squished, highly saturated, sounds like magic.
I pretty much only use Logic's compressors and Presswerk, i don't feel like i need anything else since presswerk.

i'm not sure how it models different types like VCA/Opto/VariMu

[jochicago]

It's an impressive compressor to say the least. I don't have it, but it's high on my wish list. I don't think it will soon go on sale discounted enough for me to buy it, and I can't justify a budget for yet another compressor. But if you don't have a few go-to compressors, this one can be the only compressor you'll need.

Every feature-rich compressor I've seen is missing this critical feature called "Non Lin" in Presswerk. Vintage compressors I've tested (VCA, FET, Opto) use an early-release model (or dialing it left). Without this feature you can't use something like Kotelnikov or TB BusCompressor to try to emulate say a DBX160 or an 1176. For instance, TB BusCompressor uses a straight linear release (or leaving it in the center). It may seem like a small thing, but there's a reason all those vintage units tilt left.

However, I'm still holding out for a compressor that separates the knee for the attack and the release cycles - haven't seen any compressor provide controls for this (some do it inside, but no controls). Plus the pump feature in Waves H Comp, the transient feature in TB BusComp, the Peak->RMS detection knob in Kotelnikov, floor and ceiling threshold limits... there's plenty of room yet for a truly featured compressor to rule them all

(If any developer is following, I'd be happy to provide an interface design)

[4tune]

Some interesting replies here thanks!

Going to be trying the limiter tip kmonkey!

And there`s clearly a lot else to dig into here which will require some experimentation and digging into the manual some time.

[fese]

I’ve had some success leveling very uneven basses (especially acoustic) when dialing the “delay” knob to the left. Could also be achieved via the old “duplicating the bass track, shifting it back in time and feed it to the side chain on a comp on the original track” trick, but with Presswerk you can do it in one track, as long as you don’t need long delay.

[Cooker]

I love the saturation section, that alone can be enough for many things and fast to work with (including compression)

[4tune]

Yes the side-chain delay back/ forward function seems handy!

Have to agree about the saturation section aswell. Really liking the U-he saturation sound across the bundle of plugs!

[sleepcircle]

Every feature-rich compressor I've seen is missing this critical feature called "Non Lin" in Presswerk. Vintage compressors I've tested (VCA, FET, Opto) use an early-release model (or dialing it left). Without this feature you can't use something like Kotelnikov or TB BusCompressor to try to emulate say a DBX160 or an 1176.

As far as I know, Kotelnikov GE contains that feature—it's labelled Inertia in the interface.

[herodotus]

I am not sure why someone would compress kicks?

6090 posts and you don't happen to know that people (especially in electronic music) are compressing their kicks to: change shape/sound of it, duck or expose transinents or shape them add some compressor color on it or anything~~©~aa!1 here which compressor can give you - touche

I often use compression on acoustic kick drums as well, which is pretty standard in rock recordings. The standard function is to pull the low amplitude shell ringing into the louder, more transient head surface sound, because otherwise that head surface sound will be all you get.

Of course this doesn't have much to do with Presswerk. But it's kvr, so....